


A Tale of Two Sisters

by noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, References to past Rape and Abuse, and sansa & arya's sibling relationship, emphasis on jon & arya's sibling relationship, everyone's still trying to get used to the cousin thing, not sibling incest but it's on everyone's mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 11:19:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11804949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth/pseuds/noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth
Summary: Arya doesn't understand Sansa. She especially doesn't understand Sansa's relationship with Jon. But she's trying.Picks up immediately where the Sansa & Arya scene left off in 7x05 "Eastwatch" and then ignores basically everything that happened after.





	A Tale of Two Sisters

**Author's Note:**

> I hated how Sansa and Arya's argument was handled, so I decided I wanted to fix it by having the girls hash it out. It spiraled from there.

_You’re thinking it right now. You don’t want to be, but the thought just won’t go away._

Arya is almost out the door when Sansa catches her arm. Arya’s first, wild instinct is to lash out — her dagger is still heavy at her waistband, but her fists would do just fine — but this is _Sansa_ , and besides Arya knows better. What lesson has she learned more than to wait, and think, and rely on a different set of instincts than the mere impulse of anger? So, turning her head, she simply raises an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Sansa says.

“Yes.”

“Yes, I’ve thought about it.” Sansa’s face has hardened into a mask. “What will happen if Jon doesn’t return. I’ve considered it. I can’t afford not to.”

Arya’s stomach sinks a little, but she smirks. “So you can be the queen just as you always dreamed.”

“I am not that girl, Arya.”

And then Sansa sighs, straightening her shoulders like Mother used to do, and says, “Please sit.” Arya glances at the chairs set cozily together beside the fireplace. Is this where she and Baelish whisper their plans to each other? But before she can allude to that craven sneak, Sansa says — and it’s no longer a request — “ _Sit_.”

“As you please, Lady Stark,” Arya says cuttingly, but she sits.

Sansa does not say anything more for what feels like a long time, and Arya closes her eyes, listening to the sound of her sister breathing, evenly, carefully; listening to the rustle of her skirts as she smooths them; listening to the low voices beyond the chamber doors, where the guard that is posted there greets some passerby in the hallway, a servant perhaps, who laughs quietly at whatever the guard has said. Arya listens, silent and still, until she hears the sharp intake of breath that means Sansa finally means to speak.

Just to spite her, Arya says first, “You can’t have Jon’s crown.”

“I don’t — ” Sansa cuts herself off, clenching her jaw. There is some hard gleam in her eyes that Arya has never seen before. “Do you want to know why Jon gave me Father and Mother’s room?”

“Because you wouldn’t stop whining otherwise?”

“ _Because_ ,” Sansa snaps, “he knew it would make me feel safe.”

Arya opens her mouth at that, but she doesn’t know what to say. Of course Winterfell’s most preciously guarded room would feel safer. But, regardless of Jon’s stupidly kind intentions, shouldn’t the safest room in the castle go to the king? Even, as Sansa must think of him, a bastard king.

“I don’t know what happened to you, Arya, these past years. I imagine it hasn’t been easy. I like to hope you learned to fight like you can simply for the pleasure of it, but I suspect otherwise. And I too have learned to be as I am because of what has happened to me.” Sansa looks into the fire then, as if she senses her mask slipping, those blue eyes so like Mother’s finally betraying some emotion, some thought, she means to keep hidden. Arya knows suddenly that Sansa will not cry, but that she wants to. 

Or maybe she just wants Arya to think that she wants to. 

Sansa continues, “Winterfell is our home, and I have to think about how we will defend it, how we will protect it and our people and how I will protect you and Bran too, even if Jon is not here. I can’t do it if the men reject me, if our people reject me. I need the Northern Lords on my side. I never want to lose Winterfell again.”

“Jon _will_ come back.” Arya has to believe it. How could life lead her all the way back to him only to snatch him away before she could even see him? It had happened with Robb and Mother; it cannot not happen again.

“I hope you’re right. Winterfell is his home as much as it is anyone’s. More. He is King in the North, who defeated Ramsay Bolton and united the Northern peoples against the army of the dead. It’s true that the lord’s chamber is rightfully his. But … ”

“But?”

“But bad things have happened in Winterfell. Things have happened — ” Sansa straightens her spine and turns back to Arya. She’s back to being unreadable in that pleasant, placid way she has. Arya wonders what it would be like to wear her face, so lovely and so cold. It is a horrible thought and Arya locks it away with the part of her that still shudders a little when she cuts a man’s throat. The useless part. The part that will slow her down if she lets it.

Sansa continues, “Things have happened here, things have happened _to me_ here, that can sometimes make it hard to feel like home. Jon understood that. He understands that. This room … he gave it to me because it gives me strength and comfort. It reminds me that this was our home long before it ever fell into Bolton hands, and it is ours again and must always be ours.”

Arya is no fool: she knows that bad things have happened to Sansa. She was trapped in King’s Landing with Joffrey and Cersei for who knows how long. The Hound told Arya that the Kingsguard tormented Sansa. In truth, Arya did not expect her to survive. But she did — and if rumors and foreign plays are to believed, she’s been married off to Tyrion the Imp and Ramsay Snow the bastard, which must have sorely bruised her ego if nothing else. And of course she was there for Father’s execution. Arya still thinks of that day all too often; she cannot but assume that Sansa does too. 

But Sansa is not like Bran, in whom Arya can see nothing of the boy she once knew. Sansa is grown taller and sterner and haughtier and (remembering her embrace in the crypt below Winterfell) perhaps in some ways kinder, but she is still the perfect lady, pretty and charming and swayed by the flattery of fickle lords and powerful but weak men like Littlefinger. She still smells sweet, and her hands were so soft when they clasped Arya’s calloused ones. Her needlework is impeccable.

It had not occurred to Arya that Sansa’s wounds may be hidden, beneath her furs and her gowns, beneath her skin. She may not have Arya’s scars, but neither is she whole.

“I’m sorry,” Arya says. “But still, you shouldn’t assume that Jon won’t return. I know you think Jon’s just a — ”

“I don’t think Jon’s _just_ an anything. He is a good man. The best man. I love Jon, Arya. He is my king and he is my brother.”

“But you never even liked him!”

Sansa looks abashed. A hint color rises to her cheeks. “Yes, well. I was a stupid child, and I wanted to make Mother happy. But I’m not a child anymore, and neither is Jon, and I have spent more time at his side than anyone. Neither of us are the same as we once were, and we’ve helped each other to become these new people we are. We really have. I know it’s strange to you but you haven’t seen him since he was a boy. I know him as he is now.”

It is hard not to feel annoyed. Sometimes, when she was a girl, Arya’s only solace when she muddied her skirts and ruined her stitches and got scolded by Sansa and Septa Mordane alike, was that she knew she was Jon’s favorite, more beloved even than Robb. She was Jon’s little sister, and she adored him, and he adored her. Sansa may have been the prettiest and the most ladylike, the best at all she did, she may have looked down her nose at Arya and laughed at her and called her ugly, but Arya had Jon and Sansa did not. And Sansa was too foolish and self-involved to even realize what she was missing.

And now she says she knows him best. Arya knows she lived with him for a time at the Wall; she crossed the North and back rallying the Houses with him; in a way, she fought a battle with him. Perhaps it is true. Perhaps she knows him. But does she know the warmth of his smile? The way his eyes crinkle when he laughs? Does she know how it feels when he hugs you tight and presses a kiss into your hair?

“Don’t be jealous,” Sansa teases. It only annoys Arya more. “I’m not saying I love him better, or that he loves me better. You were always his favorite. When he sees you … ” Sansa smiles, a true smile. “All I ask is that you do not presume to know how I feel about Jon.”

Jon still loves her best, she knows he must. He’d given her Needle — what had he ever given Sansa?

But then her mind whispers, _Winterfell_ , and she is sullen again. She narrows her eyes at Sansa.

“If you’re loyal to Jon, then why do you keep letting Littlefinger trail behind you like a dog? He worked for the fucking Lannisters!”

She means to shock Sansa, but Sansa doesn’t react. If anything, she seems amused. “Oh, him? He’s manipulated me behind my back too many times. I’d rather keep him close.”

“I don’t like it. I don’t like him.”

Sansa actually snorts. “No one _likes_ Littlefinger. But he is useful and we still have need of him. We need the knights of the Vale to hold Winterfell and fight whatever enemy comes for us, no matter where they come from.”

“I could just slit his throat.”

“Tempting, but … ” Sansa leans forward, just a little, and Arya is struck again by the coziness of these chairs, the warmth radiating from the hearth. Maybe it is not Littlefinger who sits for long, lazy hours beside Sansa at the fire, scheming and talking and planning. Maybe this is Jon’s seat. 

Sansa must catch something in her face, because she says, “Are you still angry with me? I do wish you’d just say what you mean.” She sounds tired now. “Everyone around me speaks in half-truths and careful lies and tactful flattery, and I can’t begin to understand half of what Bran talks about anymore. But Jon spoke to me openly. I wish you would too.”

Arya considers her sister for a moment, this grown woman who is and is not like the girl she once was. What had happened to her? What secrets did she carry? What was she really thinking?

“I’m not angry,” Arya says finally. “I think — ” She hesitates. “I think I don’t know you.”

Some passing emotion flickers across Sansa’s face before she hides it, but Arya wishes it would come back. It might help her understand her sister. When did Sansa learn to give so little away? “I fear I am not an easy woman to know,” Sansa says. “Not anymore. But I would like it if you tried.”

Arya nods. She thinks of Father and Mother, and Robb and Rickon. She thinks of Jon and what he’d want her to do. She says, “Yes. I’ll try.”

* * *

When Jon returns to Winterfell, he is no longer Arya’s brother. He is a Targaryen, her _cousin_ , and the word sounds so wrong even in her own mind that she resolves never to speak it aloud. If Jon is Jon, the Jon she’s always known, he won’t care about any of it. Not the dragons or his queen of an aunt or Rhaegar fucking Targaryen; he will know that Eddard Stark was always his father, and that nothing has changed between them. He will see her and take her into his arms and call her _little sister_.

And that is just what he does.

He rides through the gates early in the morning, while Arya is sparring with Pod and trying not to beat him too badly. She sees him, leading a handful of men, all half-dead on their horses. He is worn from the road and so much older than she remembers: his face is bearded and scarred, his hair tied back like hers is, like their father’s always was. But when she drops her sword and launches herself into his arms, he holds her so tightly she thinks he might never let go. “Look at you,” he says when he pulls away from her at last. “You’ve grown up.” 

He sounds so sad that reaches up to give his beard a tug and says, “So have you, _Your Grace_.” It makes him laugh.

“Don’t you dare. I’m just Jon to you. The same as ever.”

It takes her a moment to realize it’s a question, and she throws her arms around him again. “Just the same,” she whispers. And though everything else in the world has changed, she knows that this hasn’t. He is still her brother who loves her better than anyone else. He is her Jon.

They talk some more, about Bran and the Wall and even a little bit about dragons, but it is still too soon when he sways on his feet and asks, “Where is Sansa?”

She frowns. “Oh, inside somewhere. She might still be sleeping.” It’s unlikely: Sansa usually wakes earlier even than Arya, but for the most part her work keeps her inside, organizing food and men and servants, writing letters, listening to the people's many complaints. Arya still doesn’t see the necessity of it all, but Sansa says it’s important. Arya knows Sansa has her own way. She tries not to mind it.

But she does not want to deliver Jon into her hands, not yet. She wants to hold on to him as her own for just a moment more.

“Before anything you should eat. You must be starving. And,” she adds, giving a sniff, “you might want a bath too.”

He grins and with one arm pulls her into his side, so that she’s got her nose stuck in his stinky furs. “Smell bad, do I?” he asks, gruff, and she coughs for dramatic effect when she says, “Worse than the beggars in Braavos.”

His eyebrows raise. “You’ve smelled the beggars in Braavos?”

 _I’ve been a beggar in Braavos_ , she doesn’t say. She just nods, and his eyes go soft and sad again. “I want to hear all about it, Arya. As much as you want to tell. But first I need to speak to your sister.”

Arya shrugs away from him and says, “Ask one of the servants. They might know where she is. Or Littlefinger, if you spot him. He always knows exactly what Sansa’s doing.”

There is no mistaking the murderous flash in Jon’s eyes, and it pleases Arya to know that he agrees with her about Baelish.

“All right,” he says, and hugs her once more for good measure. “I will see you soon.”

He is crossing the yard when Arya realizes that Jon had called Sansa _your sister_. Arya’s sister. Not theirs, not his. Arya is ashamed of the little jolt of pride that it gives her.

* * *

Later, she hears that Ghost had been at Sansa’s side when Jon came home, had nipped at her skirts till she followed him to where Jon stood waiting. Sansa does not disclose what Jon said to her, or if Jon hugged her too, but she says, “It’s good to have him back,” and there is nothing but truth in her voice.

* * *

In the days that follow, she watches Jon and Sansa closely. As children, Sansa had not ignored Jon entirely, but it was plain to everyone that she did not care for him. She tolerated Arya because her parents gave her no other choice, and she doted on Robb, even when Robb got older and wanted to do nothing but spar with the other boys. (Arya and Bran demanded to be allowed to practice too. Robb gave them wooden swords, which they artlessly swung at each other until their mother found out and shouted at Robb so loud and so long that even Theon felt bad laughing about it.) Sansa watched them in the training yard sometimes, but usually Arya spotted her strolling through the gardens gossiping with Jeyne Poole or bent with needle and thread over some new dress that she hoped one day to wear before a great and handsome lord. She kissed Robb’s cheek, she cuddled Bran and Rickon, but when she encountered Jon, she might nod — Arya had seen this before — and say a few stiff words, but that was it.

So she is curious, despite herself, how they are together now.

At dinner, Sansa is polite, smiling, attentive when Jon speaks. Sometimes she leans in to say something that Arya, on Sansa’s other side, tries desperately to overhear. When the lords assemble, she speaks firmly on Jon’s behalf and swears, as she has so many times since his parentage was discovered, that he is still a Stark in all but name. “My cousin is still my king, and he is still yours,” she says. “He will lead us through the Long Night.” (Some people cheer. The lords are less treasonous now that Jon is here before them, looking so like Father, a reminder that though Targaryen blood may flow through his veins, he is every inch the Northman.) And yet she is unmistakably cool, her expression deliberately blank, her words perfectly measured. In public she always calls him her cousin, though once or twice in private conversation Arya has heard her stumble. What is she doing? What does she want? 

And Jon’s behavior is no less opaque. Despite his return, he has continued to allow Sansa to run the castle and has given her absolute control over the winter preparations. Arya understands that he is focused on the war, but it makes her nervous to see him so careless with his power. She trusts, now, that Sansa will not abuse it, but Littlefinger always seems so pleased every time Sansa’s reign expands. 

She wishes she could just cut his throat.

Jon, like Sansa, is faultlessly polite, though his manners are rougher than hers and he is far less skillful at keeping the emotions from his face. He is unmistakably fond of Sansa. Of that Arya no longer has any doubt. When she praises him, pride and gratitude roll off him in waves; when she advises him, he nods and listens and looks at her as seriously as he does his Hand, Davos. She has seen her siblings argue too, especially every time Jon mentions that he must go back North very soon, but Jon never allows it to end on a sour note. He does not hug Sansa as freely as he does Arya, but there is a gentleness in his eyes and his hands when they part.

He does not call Sansa anything but Sansa or Lady Stark. Perhaps he still wants Sansa for a sister, but now that his dragon blood has been revealed, she does not want him. But that is the sort of thing the Sansa from before would do.

Some nights they sit together in Sansa’s solar, her and Jon and Sansa and sometimes even Bran, when he can be parted from the Weirwood (though in truth he does not make good company). Another chair is set beside the fireplace for Arya, and Sansa offers them all small cups of ale or wine, all except Jon who may have as much as pleases. “He’s older than you,” Sansa tells Arya, “and besides I can hardly dictate to the _king_ how much he drinks.” But Jon never drinks much, more focused on watching his family, wearing the faintest of smiles and thinking, Arya suspects, about death and winter and how much longer they can have this moment. 

Most nights they cannot bring themselves to talk about the old days. It hurts too much. The ghosts are more present then ever with the four remaining Starks in one room. So instead Jon talks about his years in the Night’s Watch: the battles he’d fought, the friends he’d made, and the enemies. The first time Jon mentioned dying, Arya didn’t know how to take it, but she’s grown used to the strangeness of it now. He is not only a Stark king and a Targaryen prince and a dragonrider: he is a man risen from the dead. Besides, whatever else, she knows the feeling of an unexpected knife sliding between your ribs.

She doesn’t tell him that, though. Not yet. Arya regales them with stories of the marvels of Braavos, the new sights and smells and tastes. She tells stories of her training with a laugh: _I was a beggar, I was a blind girl, I went to a play_. She tries to make herself explain about the Faceless Men, but the best she can manage is, “I was learning how to kill.” She hesitates, but they already know: “I _have_ killed.”

“We’ve all killed,” says Sansa, staring deep into the fire.

Arya knows she shouldn’t ask. She can tell by Jon’s face that she shouldn’t ask. But she can’t help herself. “You’ve killed?”

Sansa looks up and smiles, a thin, hard smile. “I fed Ramsay Bolton to his own dogs. And I’d do it again.”

This is what Arya knows about Sansa’s marriage to Ramsay Bolton: it was very, very bad. Jon won’t give Sansa’s stories away but there is fury in his eyes whenever he speaks of the bastard of Bolton, and Sansa alludes to unspecific violences done to her with a kind of casualness that must be practiced. Arya thinks she was raped. Arya thinks she was tortured. In time, her suspicions are confirmed by the gossip she hears around the castle when she is stealing through its shadows, trying to learn Littlefinger’s secrets before he can learn hers.

The women of the kitchen gossip.

_... It is good to see Lady Stark strong again, I feared we never would … and then those nights when all you could hear was her screaming … Bella was washing the linens those days and said you could practically wring the blood from the sheets …_

Stablehands gossip too.

_… aye, she’s a looker but you see her eyes, there’s nothing in there … at least Bolton didn’t ruin her pretty face, but you have to wonder about the rest of her …_

The worst are the noblemen and knights who wouldn’t even acknowledge they are gossiping. They are discussing prospects, they are discussing politics.

_… but who’d ask her, after all that madman did? … she’s still the Lady of Winterfell, the king is her cousin or her brother or whatever it is they’re saying now … the first man to ask, she’ll probably give him a look that makes his cock fall off … hells, I’d be happy to stick it in her, I’m sure she’d like me better than the Imp and maybe Bolton even taught her some tricks …_

Arya memorizes the face of the man who makes this last pathetic boast. She does not know who he is. She does not know if he’s important. But she’s going to kill him.

A moon or so after Jon comes home, Jon and Sansa are again at the hearth, Jon staring thoughtfully into the flames, Sansa with her sewing on her lap. Jon has been receiving ravens all week from the armies he has assembled across Westeros, and is now beginning to put together his final battle strategies. He will leave soon. Arya hasn’t told him yet, but she’s decided she’s coming with him. Sansa, meanwhile, is mending her family’s clothes so that the seamstresses and skilled women of the castle can continue to focus on soldiers’ garments and the sturdy winter clothes that are to be distributed to the smallfolk in Wintertown who may not have anything so warm. They both attend to their activities without so much as glancing at each other. They quarreled quietly at dinner and then loudly on the ramparts outside about how many men Jon should leave behind at Winterfell, and now they are both cross and melancholy. Arya is not even sure why Jon turned up at Sansa's door, except perhaps habit.

Bored of their strange silence, Arya has long since moved to the rug beside Ghost, who lets her scratch his chin and even gives her a friendly headbutt when she tries to kiss his nose, and his warmth is enough to make her feel safe and young and clean again, just for a moment. She leans into him, closing her eyes. He might be Nymeria. She might be little Arya Underfoot, her mother’s cherished nuisance and the apple of her father’s eye.

When she opens her eyes again, Jon and Sansa have not moved, except that she has set her sewing aside to suck the tip of her forefinger. Arya’s seen it a thousand times — she must’ve pricked herself. But Jon is watching Sansa, and for all Arya thinks she can read him, there is something in his eyes, his face, that she cannot understand. Before, they couldn’t even look at each other, sick with the thought of the war, but now they can’t seem to look away. 

And then Sansa _blushes_.

“All right?” Jon murmurs, voice very low.

“All right,” Sansa says, and picks up her sewing again.

* * *

Although Arya knows she is welcome to sit in on Jon’s small council, she doesn’t often like to. She irritates Jon’s advisers, which wouldn’t bother her so much, except that she doesn’t want to risk irritating Jon too. He has too much to handle as it is, and she has begun to wonder if he sleeps at all. But this meeting is important, and if she plans on fighting the White Walkers she may as well understand what the battle strategy will be.

Sansa sits to Jon’s right, Davos to his left. A handful of other lords are present, as well as the master-at-arms to report on the progress of the fighters he’s been hastily training up. There is a map of the far North and another of the lands around Winterfell unfurled before them.

Arya circles the room on soft feet, looking for a seat as they take in the vast expanse of land they must defend. No one is paying attention to her, not even Jon, and, with a little smile to herself, she quietly leans in beside her sister. She’s close enough that she can smell Sansa, sweet as always, and she puts her mouth right next to Sansa’s ear. “What’s the plan, then?”

She thinks she and Jon are the only two who see how badly Sansa’s starts. She doesn’t make a sound, but her whole body goes rigid, and Arya curses herself and backs away when Jon fixes her with a disapproving glare. She’d only meant — oh, what had she meant? Only it was simpler to know how to handle Sansa when they were both children who could tease each other and pull each other’s hair, but now Sansa won’t take the bait and it makes these stupid little digs all the more tempting. Maybe this is Arya’s attempt to get her sister back, instead of this queenly thing that’s taken her place.

Arya watches Jon slide one careful hand over to where Sansa’s grips the table, just close enough that their pinkies and the sides of their palms touch. Sansa swallows and looks up. “Yes, Jon,” she says firmly. “What is the plan?”

He details the armies he has, the numbers, the strategies. He reminds them that if the White Walkers make it to Winterfell, it’s over. Despite days of arguments with Sansa over it, he remains firm that will be leaving a fairly strong contingent of fighters at Winterfell. “It’s our final holdfast,” he says. “We lose it, we lose the North. We lose the continent.”

Sansa nods but says, “If you need those men, you send a raven. I can’t — we can’t hold Winterfell if you get yourself killed out there.”

“I understand, my lady.” Arya, having slunk over the chair across from Sansa, wrinkles her nose. My lady? “But you understand that I can’t fight our enemy while I fear I've left my home and my family unguarded.”

Sansa nods again. “I understand, Your Grace.”

Jon and Davos point at the map and talk some more. Arya tries to follow it, but it isn’t particularly interesting. She likes to fight, but war is another thing. It’s all logistics, mass mobilization, making sure all the pieces get where they need to be in time; but Arya would rather rely on no one but herself. Sansa’s got an attentive look on her face, and it fools Arya for a moment, but this isn’t Sansa’s world either. She's come to understand Sansa's world a little better. She is handling another kind of logistics: the management of a castle in a long winter, in the midst of at least two wars, and with refugees bound to begin pouring in any day now. She’s organized supply lines and glass gardens and repurposed every spare slip of cloth for blankets or cloaks; she also supervises the work being done in forge, the armory, and the training yard. Arya belatedly considers whether she should’ve taken up some of these duties; she may not be Lady Stark, but she too is a Princess of Winterfell. But they’ve needed her to help train the older girls in basic swordsmanship and defense.

Arya catches Sansa’s eye and mouths _I’m sorry_.

Sansa quirks a smile, small but real. _It’s okay_ , she mouths back.

Eventually Jon says, “There is one more matter. My aunt has written to say that her armies and her dragons will be here within the week. I will be leaving with them once they arrive.”

“Will they be stopping at Winterfell?” Sansa asks, creasing her brow. More work. More worries.

“The Dothraki and the Unsullied will stay outside the gates, but only for a night. They are different from our people but they will not cause trouble. Their queen won’t allow it. As for the dragons, she will land them nearby briefly, but once I ride out to meet her, we will fly them further North as soon as possible so as not to frighten anyone.”

How easily he talks of riding dragons. _And how easily I talk of killing people. We have all changed_.

“However, I want there to be no mistake. If I die and Daenerys Targaryen survives, she is not my heir. My heir is my cousin Sansa Stark. If I don’t come back, Winterfell and the North are hers.” He holds Sansa’s gaze until a flickering, sad smile appears on her face. “I have told my aunt as much. I have drawn up official papers declaring Sansa my heir. I will announce it before the Lords. Whatever happens, Daenerys Targaryen has no right to the North.”

Davos shifts in his seat, clearing his throat. “And … how does this affect the other matter, Your Grace?”

Arya perks up. “What other matter?”

With a hard glare at Davos, Jon says, “It doesn’t. That matter can wait until after the war.” He glances at Sansa with something like shame.

But of course Sansa shows no reaction, only says his name before he cuts her off: "No, Sansa. Don’t even think on it until things have settled.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Sansa says, but there’s something brittle in it.

* * *

Littlefinger is lurking in the corridor when the meeting ends, and he extends an arm to Sansa. “Lady Stark, may I speak with you a moment?”

Jon all but growls, and Arya fingers the hilt of her dagger, and Sansa smiles sweetly and puts her arm in Littlefinger’s. “Of course, Lord Baelish.” She turns back to her family. “I’ll see you later.” And then she glides away, Petyr Baelish at her side, already bending her ear.

“He’s a son of a bitch, Your Grace,” says Davos with a chuckle, “but I’d say Lady Stark can take care of herself with that one. She’s been doing it a long time.” He claps a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “Now, I have more we must discuss about the Wildlings … ” 

They stride off in the opposite direction.

Arya waits seven breaths before she hurries after Sansa and Littlefinger and the web of whispers they've built between them.

* * *

“Did did he do it?”

Littlefinger’s voice is like smoke in the air, and she can’t but imagine that Sansa is choking on it. They have found a secluded hallway, far from servants, far from the men pledged to Jon. Perhaps “found” is not the word — perhaps they already knew it was here. Baelish surely leaves nothing to chance. He would find a place no one would pass through, a place where he could hear any footstep coming his way. But she is Arya, who once was No One, and she she can hide in the shadows, soundless and unnoticed forever.

She is around the corner, just inside a doorway now, ready to slip silently inside should they move a step in her direction. She can’t see anything anyway so she squeezes her eyes closed and _listens_. Sansa is saying in a dull tone of voice, “His Grace was generous enough to name me his heir. He assures me he has made the situation plain to his aunt, and says that he will tell the men pledged to him that if she tries to claim the North, they are duty-bound to rally behind me.”

“Hm.”

“What?”

“There is a chance the North will rally for your younger brother instead, when the time comes.”

“Bran does not want to rule. He may not even be in Winterfell by war’s end.”

A pause. “Your sister?”

Sansa laughs. “Under no traditions of succession would Arya come before me.”

“But will she object? She’s devoted to Jon Snow.”

“As am I. He is my king.” There’s that dull tone again.

“Of course, my dear. I would never suggest otherwise. You are a true and loyal daughter of the North, and when you rule — ”

“When _you_ rule, through me, you mean.”

“No, my dear Sansa.” His tone grows raspier, more wistful, more cloying. “When we rule _together_ , we will have half the realm under our control.”

“And then you mean to fight the Dragon Queen for the Iron Throne?”

“The Dragon Queen may be dead by the time this war is over. She and her dragons may perish alongside every last Targaryen.”

She is more severe this time: “ _Jon_ is a Targaryen. Do not speak treason to me.”

“It is not treason to say that you would be a better ruler than Westeros has ever known. As would I. It is merely truth. And,” he adds, lowering his voice so that Arya can only just hear him, “here’s another truth: you had best hope that Jon Snow dies in this war, because if he survives and marries Daenerys Targaryen, the North’s independence is forfeit and the Starks will lose Winterfell. It will belong to their mad Targaryen children.”

“He hasn’t accepted Daenerys’s marriage offer yet. He may not.”

“He would be King of the Seven Kingdoms. He’d be a fool to turn her down.”

A marriage offer. Of course. Such things matter among kings and queens, ladies and lords. No wonder Jon wants to put off talking about the end of the war and what he’ll do when it’s over. Davos probably wants him to marry his aunt and start a dynasty.

She barely catches Sansa’s next words. “He doesn’t want the Seven Kingdoms. All he’s ever wanted is Winterfell. And he can have it. He _already_ has it.”

“The Northern Lords may accept a Targaryen as their king in a time of war, but when the war is over … they may worry his allegiances may lie further South.”

Another long pause, long enough that Arya wonders if the conversation is over, and then she hears, “They’d accept him as a Stark if he married a Stark.”

If he married a Stark? Arya’s eyes snap open. Surely she can’t mean … 

“Ah. It’s come to this, has it?”

“We’ve discussed it.”

“Well, then. You’ve thought of everything. But tell me true, Sansa, do you think he could do it? He may be a Targaryen, but to marry his sister?”

“I’m not his sister,” she says, and suddenly Arya realizes she’s been practicing saying it until it sounds true. “I am his cousin.”

“That you are, sweetling. And you are lovelier than any dragon queen I can imagine. But they say she is the most beautiful woman in the world, and she has the distinct advantage of not looking like the woman who despised him his entire childhood. If the time comes, he _will_ marry Daenerys.”

“So?”

“So. We must make sure the time never comes.”

* * *

Arya pushes past the guard and bangs on the door to Jon’s solar until he he lets her in. Davos is there too, and one of the Manderleys, she can never keep them straight, but Jon sees the look on Arya’s face and gently tells the men that he needs a moment with his sister. “What?” he asks, once they have gone. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I think,” she says, and then she doesn’t know how to finish the thought.

“Arya — ”

“Littlefinger. And maybe Sansa. I think they want to kill you.”

However she expected him to react, it isn’t like this: with a chuckle and a ruffle of her hair. “Aye, I imagine they do.”

“I’m being serious.”

His grin softens, but there’s no fear or anger or betrayal in his eyes. “I’m sorry, I know you are.” He takes her in his arms, and she feels nine years old again.

“I’m coming with you,” she confesses into his furs.

He goes still and pulls away from her, and she regrets saying anything except that she had to tell him eventually. He stoops down a little so they’re eye to eye. “You’re not coming North.”

“I am. I’m good with a sword, Jon, you’ve seen it. And I’ve got my dagger now too. It’s Valyrian steel.”

“I know you’re good, Arya. That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

“I need you here. I need you safe.”

“Well, I need _you_ safe, and if one of Littlefinger’s agents tries to stab you in your tent at night, I’ll be there to stop him.”

He straightens and rubs a hand across his tired face, scratching at his beard. “I love you, Arya, and I love your bravery. But it’s my job to protect you. I’ll have guards, I’ll have good, trusted men around me. Littlefinger — ”

“Trusted? Like you trust Sansa?”

“Yes, Arya. Like I trust Sansa.” He sighs and sits in the chair the Manderley had vacated. “I don’t know what you heard, but Sansa’s been keeping Lord Baelish occupied. Distracted. Whatever else he does, he can’t interfere in our fight against the dead. I hate it, but she knows him, she knows how he thinks. And Sansa long ago realized I don’t have the temper to handle him. I’d like to just behead him one of these days if she’d let me, but we’re waiting until we have an actual reason.”

“You need a reason? He’s treasonous. He wants Sansa to inherit Winterfell from you, and he wants to take your place as our king.”

“He’s of the Vale — an ally, but not my subject. I could banish him, but then what happens to his men? And even if I did arrest him for treason, he’d drag Sansa down with him, tell everyone they were plotting it together. He only speaks of these things with her because he knows I will never endanger her.”

Arya insists, “They were saying it would be better if you died! Because otherwise you’re going to marry the dragon queen and — ”

To Arya’s surprise, Jon drops his head into his hands. He looks defeated. He looks exhausted. “Arya. I leave soon. I can’t have this conversation again.”

“ _Again?_ We’ve never talked about you marrying. If you’d asked me I’d just tell you not to.”

“Yes, that might be the simplest option. Or dying.” Neither of them laugh.

He looks up and reaches out a hand to steady her pacing, to make her focus on him. So she makes herself stand still and look at him, her tired brother-king who would be so easy to kill. He's hardly got his wits about him. “Listen to me,” Jon says. “Petyr Baelish has been plotting to kill me and steal Sansa away from the moment he and his Valemen rode in and saved the day. I won’t pretend he’s not a dangerous man. But he’s not a stupid man. He knows as well as I do there’s no point going to the trouble of hiring an assassin when I’m just as like to be killed by wight in a week’s time. I think at first he hoped Daenerys would burn me alive. Now he’s relying on the Long Night to kill me.”

Sometimes he’s so stupid, so _stubborn_. She has to try to explain, but she can't look at him. “Please, Jon, I have killed people. Many people.” She allows herself to peek up at his face; there is no horror there, only resigned sadness. So she says, “Trust me when I say people aren’t hard to kill. He wouldn’t have to do much.”

Jon nods, an acknowledgment not only of her warning but also her confession. But all he says is, “Baelish moves slow. Apparently he once told Sansa that when you plot your plots and scheme your schemes, you must always keep your hands clean. He’ll wait to let the winter kill me before he gets his hands dirty, because my murder could taint Sansa’s rule and therefore his own. He won’t risk his greatest dream just to speed things along.”

Arya asks, “And Sansa?” She keeps her gaze level; it is a reasonable question.

“You need to trust Sansa now, more than ever. She is your sister.”

“She is _our_ sister.”

Jon looks uncomfortable for a moment, and then tries his best to hide it. But he is a bad liar, and she freezes, her heart thudding in her chest.

“Don’t tell me it’s true.”

“What?”

“That you’ve thought of _marrying_ her?”

She starts backward when he jumps out of the chair and paces across the room, his back to her, his shoulders tight. He thumps his fist down on his desk. “ _Of_ _course_ I’ve thought of marrying her, Arya.” He inhales and exhales and says, more calmly this time, “It is a smart alliance. She is the Lady of Winterfell and I am — whatever I am — and if we married we could solidify the North around the Stark name while still keeping ties to Daenerys in the South. Sansa will be able to stay at Winterfell for the rest of her life. It gives my aunt the illusion that she’s got some control over the North, through me.” He turns to face her. “And it means I don’t have to be King to a realm I have no love for, nor husband to woman I hardly know.” She can see how much he wants her to understand. But she can’t.

“Sansa’s your — ”

“She is not my sister, Arya. It’s different with her than it is with you. It always has been.”

Arya remembers Sansa telling her that she knew Jon in a different way than Arya did, that they met again as two new people. That they became two new people together. Is this what Jon means? Or does he mean because Sansa was an indifferent sister to him once, he can pretend she was never a sister at all?

“The Northmen will say it’s your Targaryen blood,” Arya says fiercely. “They’ll say Sansa learned it from the Lannisters.”

“The Northmen will come around. Because they love your sister, and they respect me.”

Arya takes a step closer. “Do _you_ love her?”

“Of course I love her.”

“But do you — ?”

“I don’t know.” He leans against his desk now, his legs barely holding him upright. He is so much older than she remembers. He is so much older than his years. “We’ve been trying, these past weeks, to see if we could. If it’s possible for us."

"And?"

"And it might be possible between us, it might even be good, but I’m leaving and there’s a war to fight and I can’t think about it. It’s too hard, for both of us.”

It explains it, the carefulness between them, the uncertainty of where they stand. It explains the way he watched Sansa that night by the fire. It explains it, but it still doesn’t make sense.

She doesn’t want to fight with Jon, though, not when he is leaving so soon. So all she says is, “You want me to stay here to protect her?”

“I want you to stay here so that you are safe. Don’t mistake me, I can’t lose _either_ of you. Or Bran.” His smile is tentative. “But if you put that sword of yours to good use and kept Littlefinger from taking any liberties, I wouldn’t object.”

She smiles back at him and pretends this is normal. Maybe one day it will be.

Before Jon can ask her to leave, she says, “I do, you know.”

“You do what?”

“Trust Sansa. Mostly. Most of the time. But sometimes she’s _so_ — ”

He muffles an expression of amusement behind his hand. “I know.”

“I keep thinking she’s just the same as she used to be. Worried about looking nice and making people like her. And then she’ll look at me and I’ll realize I don’t have a clue what she’s thinking.”

“Yes,” he says. “That’s Sansa. But the remarkable thing I’ve learned these past years is that if you _ask_ her what she’s thinking, she’ll tell you. Maybe not everything. There are some things that aren’t ours to know. But she loves you, Arya, and she wants you to be a part of her life. She knows just as I do that we are lucky to have you. There’s no one quite like you, sister. She doesn’t want to push you away.”

She hugs him again, as tight as she can, wanting to memorize this feeling. “You’re not allowed to die out there. Even if it means you have to marry Sansa.”

His laugh is a tremulous thing, and Arya wonders for the first time if he is afraid. “I’ll only marry Sansa if she wants me to. But I swear, I will try my best to come back to you alive.”

* * *

Arya stops by Mother and Father’s room — Sansa’s room — after dinner. For once Jon is not there, and neither is Bran, though Ghost sleeps curled on the foot of the bed. “Arya,” Sansa says, putting her book aside and getting to her feet. “Is this about Jon? He told me — ”

“Please,” Arya interrupts, throwing a hand up to stop her. “I can’t talk about that again.”

“Of course. Then what … ?”

She crosses the room so that she stands before her sister and can look straight up into her eyes. Sansa frowns but meets her gaze, and then Arya says in an even tone, “This is about Littlefinger.”

She changes, minutely; holds herself more carefully, speaks in a softer, airier tone. “Lord Baelish is a trusted ally of the King in the North. Is something amiss?”

Is this the blade Sansa carries, her honeyed words, her way of saying one thing and meaning another? But Arya cannot spar with her in this game, so she instead she says, “I know you’re trying to outwit him, but it’s taking too long. The wheel’s going to come off the wagon at some point, and then he’ll have won.”

“As I’ve told you before, there are problems that can’t be solved with a sword.”

“There are also problems that can’t solved alone.” Sansa looks at her in surprise. “Let me help you. We’ll make a plan. We’ll make it perfect. We’ll solve this problem together.”

Sansa bites her lip, a nervous tick she’d had as a young girl before Mother told her it was unbecoming. It is strange and welcome to see it appear now, here, on her woman's face.

“He’s dangerous,” Sansa says finally.

Arya's slow-spreading smile is a blade all its own. “So am I.”

* * *

It is midday when three dragons soar over Winterfell. They are bigger than Arya can conceive, and so clearly deadly, and they send her heart lurching into her stomach in a not-so-unpleasant manner. They are the most wonderful thing she has ever seen, and the most terrible, because they mean that it is time for Jon to leave.

He tries to sneak away, as they knew he would. He'd told them the night before that he wouldn't say goodbye. He promised to write when he could. He would send riders with any urgent correspondence. He told them that they ought to spend the day he leaves for the North reassuring the people, who may be frightened of the dragons and the foreigners on their land, that they are safe. Reminding them that as strange as these people and creatures may be, they are allies. 

They all agreed to do as he says, and they all knew they were lying.

So they meet him at the gate. Bran, Arya, Sansa. Jon holds the reigns of his horse and Ghost paces by his side. Arya will miss Ghost too, but he must be with Jon in this. She and Sansa had absolutely refused when he offered to leave Ghost behind. 

This will be a public farewell, but the people give them a respectful amount of space, and many are more interested in the dragons circling in the distance than they are in their king. Still, she can see Jon trying to maintain his dignity, and Sansa not even having to try. Bran is stoic, as usual, and she wonders if he even cares that Jon is leaving.

But then Jon hugs him and kisses the top of his head, and Bran says, “It’s not goodbye, Jon. I will see you in the North. I will look for you. Watch the ravens.” Jon looks startled, but nods. For the first time, Arya envies Bran’s abilities, if it means he will be able to be with Jon through the war.

When Jon turns to Arya she’s certain she will cry, but then he lifts her into his arms and spins her around like he might’ve done in another lifetime and she finds she’s laughing. “I _will_ miss you, Arya. I feel like I only just got you back again.”

“Come home,” Arya says. “Whatever it takes. That’s an order.”

Last he turns to Sansa, and Arya doesn’t want to watch but she can’t quite look away. He takes off his gloves and so does she and they hold each other’s bare hands. He leans in, murmurs something into her hair, and Arya sees her fight a smile. 

Before Jon can pull away, Sansa presses a soft kiss to his cheek. It is nothing scandalous, even Arya can see that, but the look they share after is too serious, too tender.

He climbs onto his horse and looks over them once more. What does he see? Siblings? Cousins? His future wife? Or is it simply _them_ , the Starks, with their furs and their direwolves and their strong and proud faces and their powerful love? 

“Goodbye.”

And then he’s riding through the gates, Ghost loping beside him, off to ride a dragon and slay the demon king of winter and save the realm. Arya almost laughs. He really does sound like something out of one of Sansa’s songs.

But this isn’t a song, and her brother is gone, and her sister is wiping frozen tears from her cheeks. Somehow Sansa had cried without any of them seeing it. How very like her.

Arya takes hold of Sansa’s hand, which is still bare and almost colder than she can stand through the thin leather of her gloves. But she doesn’t let go.

“This isn’t the end of the story,” Arya tells her. She doesn’t know if it’s meant to be a comfort or a warning, but either way she knows it is true. “Not yours, or his, or mine. There is still so much more to come.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know a lot of this doesn't actually make sense in terms of ongoing plots and timelines, and I'm not sure why Jon just gets a month-long vacation in the middle of the war to hang out at Winterfell with his family, but I needed him at Winterfell so I put him at Winterfell. Also, I feel bad for how much I ignored Bran.


End file.
